As utterly fascinating as my recent blog posts about female genitalia, homesickness and self-disgust aren’t, I see my career as a writer disintegrate with every good news article I read. It must be a common irritation, that of the words in your head not matching the words you’ve just written down. I have always considered myself a talented writer simply because no one ever told me otherwise. The inflated ego of an...ok writer now hovers, punctured, maybe just a tinge higher than those possessed by everyone else who isn’t a writer. (Just remember, never insult egomaniacs by name on your blog, cause they google their name more frequently than I check my email.)

I’m beginning to think that I lie somewhere on that middle ground between mediocre and talented. I am not capable of possessing a devil-may-care attitude about the public reception of my writing because it is journalism; I chose this livelihood, major and hobby and therefore must begin giving a fuck where I never before had even the smallest fuck to give. (I just read a coworker’s really goddamn intelligent blog so I’m going to be extra flowery now in my jealousy while the ego balloon above my head goes WHOOSH.)

I have to be sellable. I have to be current. I have to follow modern linguistic trends. When really, I am personally content when I write something that doesn’t elicit bile rising up from my stomach on a second read. I find myself getting vag deep in journalistic dos and don’ts that make me realize I have signed up for a future that I knew nothing about. To enumerate on this, as the editor of my high school paper, I did not utilize the AP Stylebook nor was I aware of its existence. And now I am purportedly an authority on it, being that I am a news editor. (Lauren, are you ready to fire me yet?) Layout and design was a whole other wild goose chase with me being the chaser and doohicky little InDesign techniques being the quacker.

Being that this news editor job is the primary focus in my life, I often think about what I could’ve done better in my past year and a half with the paper. All the nonsense that has accumulated in my time here boils down to my lack of professionalism. Taken in by the (fame, fortune and gilded gold slave-men attendants?) of this paper initially, I probably made some unwise personal choices that I can only attribute to youthful stupidity, my overriding desire to be liked by all these older people and my not-so-secret love of the controversial. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that I want to be seen as an ambiguous coworker who does not have a mouth that enters the room before she does. (It still does.)

1. Work twice as hard as the males at your workplace, get criticized twice as much.

2. Wanting to drop out of school and just be someone’s wife in order to avoid the stupid and competitive male-dominated workforce…and then realizing that dropping out and getting married is exactly what said workforce wants me to do.

3. Realizing that I am more convincing when I am emotional rather than rational, because that is how society is trained to react to the female gender.

4. Watching women pick at their salads and tiny portions while men gorge on carb-laden plates, and realizing that each is merely fulfilling their gender expectations.

5. Dealing with the fact that my country and even college does not support me having reproductive rights.

6. Seeing the subordinate position female newscasters must take to male coworkers in order to survive in their career. Oh, and that they have to look and dress a certain, appealing way even to get the job in the first place.

7. Girls kissing other girls at parties, in front of guys, to get GUY attention. Thanks for making the plight of the American lesbian about ten times harder to overcome by making yourself into a piece of meat.

8. In that same vein, anything associated with brides and their weddings. Why don’t you just literally chain yourself to the man? Nah, I guess the purity symbolism, name change and heteroexclusivity does the job for you. Barf.

9. Women in the public sphere who speak out against the rights of other women. Are you men in boob suits?

10. The fact that I guiltily read crap like Glamour magazine and catch myself buying into the sexist drivel they are selling to women.

I bought last minute tickets for us to attend the Gonzaga Luau tonight. We aren’t going to be able to eat, cause there were only show-only tickets left. No big deal though – there’s only so much white rice I can eat. I made a variety of candy lei (and haku and bracelet…whoops) and I am ready to go cry and be super fucking homesick! I can’t hear or see or smell anything remotely Hawaiian without becoming ridiculously nostalgic and sad. Definitely different than the haole girl who couldn’t wait to leave the B.I. haha.

I am so frustrated with myself! Not only did I bomb an easy quiz today, I am being charged an additional $80 for forgetting to tell the housing RD that I’ve been moving my stuff from one apartment to another. She helped me in finding new roommates and, when I was supposed to tell her whether I wanted to end up there, I just moved my stuff in slowly and didn’t say anything. This was because I was busy with work, with Paul, with school…I guess I just don’t have an excuse but I certainly wasn’t trying to keep anything from her. It completely slipped my mind. And now I’m the recipient of a very angry email telling me that I was unsafe in my actions. I feel really bad, actually, because she gets in trouble if I go missing (why, I don’t know) and no one knows where I live. Also, the key/door locking situation was pretty unsafe. I hate being penalized when I didn’t mean any harm, but I suppose I’d do the same thing in her shoes. 😦 Crappy day.

Paul and I spent the majority of the day downtown and we spent some heavy amounts of cash. We ate dim sum in Chinatown, I bought us massages, he bought an expensive dinner. It was a relatively fun day, but our wallets are hurtin’! It’s hard to remember, when we’re caught up in the glamour of Seattle, to keep with our spartan college budgets. Also, my masseuse (to be fair, he was a student) basically just poked and prodded me for an hour. I also didn’t take my clothes off because a) his name was Omar, b) he was a he and c) I like to keep my chunk under wraps.

Paul amazingly navigated the steep-as-shit Seattle hills with a stick shift, and also was very nice in facilitating transportation for our beloved JoyceMarieDvorak. I am exhausted now and want nothing more than to crawl into bed. My favorite part of the day was eating dinner with Paul, Joyce, Mattea and Dan…car stories are the best stories.